


take it as an invitation

by jeannedarc



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: (mostly), Canon Compliant, Exes, Friends With Benefits, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Riding, Self-Esteem Issues, Telepathy, gentle mockery, this probably makes it sound so confusing lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:40:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23793250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeannedarc/pseuds/jeannedarc
Summary: Doyoung doesn't sleep well when it's comeback time, which makes it hard for him to block out the thoughts of his other members.
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Lee Taeyong
Comments: 18
Kudos: 291





	take it as an invitation

**Author's Note:**

> good day good day ♥  
> i wrote this as a challenge for my friends over in the we cry here chat, who challenged me to leave my house with my laptop and get something done. it's only been gently looked over, and therefore any mistakes are my own.  
> thanks to a for helping me with the aesthetic of it all and c for hyping me up and asking the exact clarifying questions i needed!!!

Kim Doyoung is tired.

Not the sort he usually is; that’s not what bears mentioning, much less repeating, at least not in his own constant state of self-evaluation. It’s not like he has a ton of stamina in the first place, or like he enjoys being reminded of it, which he is. He watches his friends, his coworkers, bound around like it’s nothing, but he can’t help feeling anything but heavy, and his bones creak to second the sentiment. Maybe settle into the earth a little, feel its cool, mossy embrace wrap around him. 

It would be kind of the earth, to offer him a little peace.

No, this isn’t that sort of tired. His body is fine. Practise has barely started today, and though it’s sure to be a grueling schedule -- comeback isn’t that far away, nor their trip to the States, both of which demand a level of perfection that Doyoung’s always striving for but never quite reaching -- he can handle it. At least, so long as he has everyone’s support. (He does. Johnny checks on him just a couple times too often, considering they’ve only been here a couple hours. He adores Johnny, just for that.)

The thing that is exhausting him with each breath, as he lies slumped, halfway to the floor and his shoulder to the mirrored wall, is that he can _hear_ the thoughts of every one of the eight bodies around him. Every idea that passes through all eight of their heads rings clear to him, each one a bell that clangs so loudly behind Doyoung’s eyes that he might spark a migraine out of it.

It’s his fault, staying up late to watch some film he can’t even remember. Most nights, Doyoung wakes up a little more refreshed, more ready to take on the day. 

The gentle rings around his eyes, quick to form and slow to leave, remind him that not only is work going to be difficult today, but so is the act of blocking out everyone else’s thoughts.

Not that this is the first time, mind.

He’d come to the game some many years ago knowing that this part -- the part where he’s surrounded constantly by people whose thoughts he can’t control, the part where he’d have to learn to block them out to save himself. After slowly developing this ability from childhood, he’d gotten good at turning up the static the radio in his head had given him for protection.

Metaphor, of course. People don’t have radios in their heads. People that aren’t Doyoung, anyhow.

Still, he can see the worry on Johnny’s face before he actually _sees_ Johnny, whose back is to him as he runs through their routine again, out of formation. From across the room Jungwoo worries that perhaps he isn’t nailing this move or that one as smoothly as he might like. That alone is enough to make Doyoung collapse into the hardwood, regardless of the prints left behind on its normally shiny surface. He wouldn’t mind the mess if it meant he could have a little bit of _rest_.

The break in routine wouldn’t be so bad. Sometimes it works to his advantage, after all -- knowing what to get people for their birthdays, for example, or knowing when to avoid the dorm at all costs for fear that he’ll stumble upon two of the members hooking up. Sometimes, when Yuta and Mark are giving each other the eye, Doyoung doesn’t _need_ the mind-reading powers, but it doesn’t hurt to _confirm_.

Maybe he’s a bit of a voyeur. Maybe! So what. No one knows but him. He’s been keeping this close to his chest for awhile. It isn’t hurting anyone.

The thing about today, besides the lack of sleep, is that _someone_ is feeling exceptionally horny. He won’t say who. Not initially, anyway, both because he doesn’t _want_ to know, and because he doesn’t think it’s necessary for his survival to intrude on someone else’s thoughts.

He’s too polite, he thinks when they break from this particular round of practise. Taeyong hovers over him when he squats, knuckles dragging the ground, trying to will some of the rubberiness out of his legs.

“Drink this,” says Taeyong, in that leaderly way of his that is both far too stern and too matronly to fit someone who looks like… well, _that_. Not that Doyoung has complaints about either. It’s served him well before.

Doyoung takes the water, mumbles a _thanks, Taeyongie_ , drinks it all down in three big gulps. He hadn’t realised he was thirsty until he did, and there’s a joke lingering somewhere between unwarranted images of himself, how pretty he’d look getting jerked off in front of the mirror that’s offering him support this very moment. He crushes the flimsy plastic bottle between his fingers, then stares at it, wonders why he didn’t bring his own today. Probably the break in the routine. Everything gets chalked up to that, today. 

Taeyong is still standing there, peering down at him, and his eyes are dancing with something that Doyoung knows too well to place. At least he has some hint. At least he knows who to fight, should it come down to fighting.

As Taeyong drifts away, monitoring the other members in that way that’s specific to him, Doyoung catches a thought, cutting through the purposeful veil of static he’s tried to drape over himself. 

He sees his own face, reflected back in his mind’s eye, and for one exhausted second he thinks he might just be being self-absorbed. But no, he doesn’t see it the way he normally sees himself, the flaws and the ‘could be’s. In this thought, he’s perfect. An idealised version of himself, dewy and fresh and, strangely, _nude_.

It’s the last time he and Taeyong hooked up. A memory, played on loop, just a fraction of that final night. Taeyong is _remembering_ , and _fondly_ at that.

It’s not like he’s never been privy to this, either -- just that he doesn’t often hear lascivious thoughts about himself. It’s almost like a treat, albeit a small one, a confidence boost. Even if he’s painfully aware that his attractiveness is an acquired taste, and even if no one else finds him sexy, occasionally his members do, despite knowing almost everything about him, despite being with him at his absolute worst times. That’s comforting.

It’d be way less weird if it weren’t Taeyong, who is currently in the process of imagining licking a bead of sweat from the divot of Doyoung’s clavicle. He doesn’t hate it. It’s just… _distracting_ , because Taeyong thinks in images, rather than in words, and for a second Doyoung could mistake it for hallucination.

He doesn’t. It’s a nice little image, one he files away for later.

It would be nicer if it didn’t _keep_ occurring to Taeyong at various points throughout their practise. Not just that, either, but even more graphic images. At one point it’s so vivid that Doyoung pauses, peeks beneath the hem of his oversized t-shirt to make sure there aren’t any bruises forming on his hipbones, that there haven’t been any mysterious marks littered across his chest.

It’d be arousing, right, except today Doyoung is _tired_ and, more importantly, he hasn’t gotten the routine down to his own satisfaction. But he slots these into a particular place in his memory, saving them for later. 

It isn’t like he’s averse to the idea, after all; everyone has to relieve stress in their own ways, himself included. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t stressed lately.

It’d be easier to bear if Taeyong didn’t tell everyone else to take a break for the sole purpose of taking Doyoung aside for one of those _talks_. The hands-on kind. The ones where the guidance of Taeyong’s gentle hands matches up to the places he’s imagined putting them on Doyoung completely. It’s not fair. Doyoung’s still shivering with the memory, while Taeyong’s moved on.

“You can do this,” encourages Taeyong, his mouth all too close to Doyoung’s ear, and _that_ is arousing. Embarrassingly so. They all have their switches, after all. It just so happens that Taeyong’s lips are Doyoung’s. He rolls his shoulders, fights the wave of turned-on-ness that threatens to knock him clean over, and tries his hardest to forget everything he’s seen playing on loop inside of Taeyong’s head today.

After a couple rounds of careful instruction, Taeyong’s watchful eyes bearing down on Doyoung with a weight that not even his supposedly gorgeous shoulders can bear, Doyoung waves him away. The room is starting to fill up again, anyhow, and Doyoung is so tired that all he wants is for practise to be over.

He wonders, briefly, if it will be easier when Taeyong leaves again for the States, not as one of them but as something separate. If he’ll take those thoughts with him when he goes. It seems like he would, distance being a factor in Doyoung’s ability to tune in with people, but that doesn’t mean he’ll take the memories with, too.

By the time rehearsal is over for the day, Doyoung can feel his skin starting to crawl with anticipation. His plans are as follows: Go home. Shower. Fall into bed. Try and forget about the argument he’d heard play out in two separate peoples’ heads. (Jaehyun and Donghyuck, strangely enough; he wonders what they’ve been up to when he isn’t around, when he’s less in-tune with their idiosyncrasies). Try and forget the fact that he’d only improved about two-thirds as much as he’d wanted to today, try and forget about _Taeyong_ , who by this point is so riled up by the day and the involuntary participation in sexualisation of his best friend that Doyoung suspects he no longer feels his own frustration, sexual or otherwise.

Exhaustion should make it easier. The ride back to the dorms is long enough that he nods off a little. His dreams are infiltrated with Taeil asking, bold-faced, what the fuck Doyoung’s problem is, albeit in a kinder manner than Doyoung ever shows himself. 

When he startles awake, it’s with Taeyong’s hand splayed across the side of his neck. “Doyoung-ah,” he says softly, and his enormous eyes are so pretty and round, catching neatly in the brilliant moonlight, the halogen glow of the street lamps. For the first time today, he’s just _worried_. “We’re home.” He pauses, like he’s unsure whether or not he should ask, then it comes out: “Do you need any help?”

Doyoung doesn’t know what comes over him, but he lurches forward, takes Taeyong’s shirt in his fingers, just for a minute, just to have some control over the situation. Two can play at this game, even if the odds aren’t in his favour.

“I’m fine,” he says, a low rumble that he doesn’t recognise as his own voice. “Just really, _really_ tired. Can you cook for the kids tonight? I don’t…” He trails off, not sure what he does or does not want, not when his own ideas are so mixed up with those of literally everyone around him.

Taeyong, an angel of mercy, nods, bottom lip worried behind his top teeth. “Yeah, Doie, just...take care of yourself.” He pulls away from Doyoung’s grasp, and disappears out of the van, into the building.

Doyoung lingers here in the very last row, content with the thoughts of just the manager, whose only impatience is that Doyoung should probably get out of the van in the next five minutes. 

“You can go up,” Doyoung tells the manager, so softly he doesn’t know for certain that he’s speaking at all, thought and speech all jumbled up when his ideas aren’t his own. “I’ll be right behind you.”

It’s inconvenient, how all at once he’s hit with those images of himself. Doyoung’s not a narcissist, at least to his knowledge, but there’s something different about it being Taeyong that rolls over him. Taeyong, who only ever worries, who probably shoves these thoughts to the back of his mind because he doesn’t have _time_ to take care of them.

Doyoung cares far too much for his own good. So, like the caring bastard he is, he formulates a plan, there in the darkness of the van. Only when he’s played out the potential options a dozen times does he exit the car.

///

“Yongie?”

Doyoung, fresh from the shower, shuffles into the kitchen in slippered feet and clean pyjamas. Taeyong glances up at him, a brief acknowledgment. He’s stir-frying… _something_ ; the smell of vegetables and meat knocks Doyoung squarely between the eyes, and the sound of popping oil is soothing, at least to him -- reminiscent of the static he’s gotten so good at filling his head with. He wishes he were cooking, if only because it’d help him exorcise some of the tension he’s built up over the course of the day, courtesy of Taeyong’s errant train of thought and his own intolerance for dirty ideas.

“Doie,” breathes Taeyong, barely glancing up. “Do you feel better? You’ve looked kind of out of it all day.” His hands are busy, constantly moving vegetables from one spot in the pan to another. “Are you hungry? I made enough for...well, not everyone, because Mark and Yuta are out again, but…”

“Third time this week,” Doyoung replies, a bit airy as he leans against the counter, peering up at Taeyong’s face. He tries, at least for a moment, to place whether or not Taeyong is fully cognisant of these thoughts he’s been polluting someone else’s mind with. “They must be getting serious.”

“Or they must be tired of your cooking,” Taeyong says, the left corner of his mouth curling up.

Doyoung takes a spatula from the drawer that’s been digging into his hip the past thirty seconds, uses it to swat Taeyong on the side of the neck. Carefully, of course, too afraid of marks to leave them behind. Ingrained behaviour is no joke.

Taeyong just shoots him a look. “I’m kidding,” he says, focusing back on his task.

Except, for some reason, Doyoung doesn’t believe him when he puts on his concentration face. He turns down the dial that keeps the unspoken boundaries between them, tunes in. It’s horrible, but he can’t say he hates himself for it. Moral grey or something.

Apparently, Taeyong would like it very much if Doyoung hit him again. So he does, the flat rubber making a decidedly pleasing _thwack_ against Taeyong’s skin. 

The kitchen, in spite of the cooking noises, goes deathly quiet. Doyoung thinks he could hear a pin drop in the time it takes for Taeyong to slowly, purposefully raise his head. His eyes go wide, and he looks at Doyoung like he’s seeing him for the first time.

“Doie,” he says, just the _name_ a struggle for him to get out in a cohesive way, “what are you doing?”

“Oh, you know,” and Doyoung raises an eyebrow, putting the offending utensil back into its proper place, “playing around.” He leans against the counter with an elbow now, and doesn’t look away even though something tells him he’s done enough boundary-breaking today.

Except now he’s lifted the veil between the two of them, Doyoung can’t seem to shut it off. He wrinkles his nose, his head filled with images of being positively drilled into by Taeyong, fingernails cutting into his skin, a mouth hot at the column of his throat, biting in with every bob of his adam’s apple. He can practically feel the texture of the countertop, all smooth and cool despite the cooking, under his splayed palms, the place where his shirt rides up exposing a sliver of belly. All right here in the kitchen where anyone could find them.

“Are you okay?” he asks Taeyong, who seems to snap to all at once. His hand, fitted around the handle of the pan he’s been using to make dinner, jerks, and so does said pan. A splash of oil lands on his chest, burning through his shirt with a disturbingly sharp _hiss_ , and he _squeals_. Doyoung steps in where Taeyong had been just a moment ago, turns off the stove. “It’s done. Seriously, are you alright?” The fire tended to, he flips around, tugging at the hem of Taeyong’s shirt.

Predictably, Taeyong steps out of that grasp, instead choosing to duck out of the kitchen, down the hall to his bedroom. The bathroom is already occupied. Doyoung abandons dinner, calling over his shoulder that there’s food for anyone that wants it as he chases Taeyong, worried about the nature of his injury and, more to the point, the nature of _getting_ it. He wouldn’t admit it aloud but he’s definitely considering performing first aid. If Taeyong lets him. 

Taeyong, when Doyoung finds him, is sitting on the floor, his forehead on his knee. “Why did you hit me again?” he asks without looking up. 

Doyoung tuts. “Because that’s what we do, isn’t it?” He takes a seat beside Taeyong. “And, um, because…” Here he glances around. The only sound is that of Johnny’s shower, a whole wall away, and the gentle hum of the television. He wonders who’s watching it, if anyone. Then he whispers, “because I knew you wanted me to.”

The moment is just as silent as the one they’d had in the kitchen. Taeyong takes a deep breath. “What?”

“Yeah, so,” and Doyoung knows he’s about to lose control a little, run off at the mouth, but there’s something so vulnerable about having been inside someone else’s head that he feels like he can trust Taeyong. It’s counterintuitive, he knows it, but there’s not much he can do once the train that is his constantly-rushing thoughts start pouring out of him. 

“I can kind of, um, read your mind. Read anyone’s mind, really? And you’ve been thinking about...uh, _things_ all day, and--”

“You know about that?” Finally Taeyong dares to lift his head, to look Doyoung in the eye. It’s a fleeting gesture, one punctuated by a groan, embarrassment all too familiar in the way he rests his forehead against his crossed arms. “You _knew_?”

“Mm. I knew Mark and Yuta were going to go out tonight, which is why I asked you to cook… I know that Donghyuck and Jaehyun are arguing about something. Maybe Johnny? I’m not sure, I wasn’t paying attention, but I know they aren’t talking about it.” It’s his turn to inhale, a shaky thing that he can feel start to rattle his ribs, from the bottom up, he a human xylophone, ready to be played. “And I know you were thinking about fucking me in the kitchen, just now. That you’ve been considering getting your hands on me all day.” Here he flushes, has the decency to be embarrassed about natural ability, probably for the first time in his entire life. “Sorry. I’m normally better at, uh. Keeping it to myself. If it’s weird, I’m really--”

And before he has a chance to even process the end of his sentence, what he could have possibly said that would make what he’s been doing okay, Taeyong takes his face in his hands, draws him close -- close enough that they can exchange breaths, that they _could_ kiss if they weren’t in the hallway under threat of someone interrupting them at any time.

“Were you trying to hit on me?” Taeyong’s eyes are impossibly huge, a little afraid -- the exact reaction Doyoung’s always afraid of getting, the reason he hasn’t told a soul in this house. “Because I know we haven’t-- listen, we _agreed_ \--”

“Does that mean you forget?” And Doyoung, losing all his shame in just a couple words, a throwaway of a sentence, reaches into the space between them, traces a nail along the edge of Taeyong’s lower lip.

Beneath his finger, Taeyong trembles. “I haven’t forgotten once,” he sighs, pulling away so he might push to his feet. “Get up. Right now.”

Doyoung doesn’t need to read minds to know what _that_ means. It helps, because it always does, but he doesn’t _need_ it. The way Taeyong doesn’t wait for him to follow, instead grabbing him by the wrist to drag him along to his bedroom, the way his fingerprints threaten to bruise the delicate bones of Doyoung’s forearm -- well, that pretty much speaks for itself.

They barely get the door shut before Taeyong is caging Doyoung in, both his arms over his shoulders, pinning him to the wall just past the door as it clicks closed. “You knew all day?” he asks, his voice this low rumble that Doyoung’s always found attractive, before they fucked the first time all those years ago, during all that time, and after when they’d decided it’d be best to end it. “ _All day_.” He says it again, rolling the words over his tongue, eyes narrowed when he peers up into Doyoung’s face. “Were you waiting for the right time to mess with me?”

“I wasn’t going to mess with you,” murmurs Doyoung, keeping calm despite the unsettling feeling he’s getting that tells him he’s about not to be able to walk straight tomorrow, “but maybe I should have, if it got your attention like this.”

Taeyong -- well, he does hover, just a bit, always too afraid of crossing that line, the reason Doyoung had agreed to stop this last time they’d made this particular mistake -- sorry, _decision_. But it’s a quick moment, something that barely warrants note. Then he’s got his teeth in the pad of Doyoung’s lower lip, tugging hard, earning himself a moan that’s been working itself up and out of Doyoung’s chest for the entirety of today. 

Doyoung finds the hem of Taeyong’s shirt with a swiftness that surprises even him, and they’re both quick to unpeel layers from one another, Taeyong still in the clothes he’d been wearing to the studio and Doyoung with his fresh, clean pyjamas. They make a puddle at stumbling feet, though where they’re going to, neither of them seem to know. They don’t even manage to fall into bed, too occupied with licking into one another’s mouths, catching the tips of tongues on the sharpened points of canines. 

“Hot,” Doyoung mumbles between kisses, finding Taeyong’s bare hips for the sole purpose of pushing him away. “You really didn’t know?” It doesn’t matter if he’s getting sweaty already, that low constitution of his a blessing and a curse. “That I could do that? How do you think you never had to tell me what you wanted for your birthday? Or when you needed a massage?”

“Maybe I just thought you were romantic,” says Taeyong, finally collapsing back onto the bed, naked thighs spread wide.

Doyoung gives him this look, the same one they’ve shared more than a hundred thousand times by now, one of indignation and accusation all at once. Then he bites hard into the meat of Taeyong’s thigh, sucking hard, the contact prolonged. In reward he gets a breathy whimper. His favourite sound, static aside.

“Maybe I’ve never been romantic in my whole life.” Doyoung laves over the mark he left, just a quick thing, a tease for what’s to come. “Maybe you’re just the only person here I like fucking.” He takes the base of Taeyong’s cock in his hand, just to hold him steady, lick a long, patient stripe along the underside of his shaft, get himself another of those pretty little sounds Taeyong’s so fond of making. “Maybe you’re the only person who’s allowed to think those things about me.” He does it again, the tip of his tongue lingering around the crown, splaying his palm across the muscle that’s already drawing tight beneath his every touch, fingertips digging into the gentle swell of flesh beneath his hand. 

“Maybe it doesn’t matter,” Taeyong manages, more gasp than actual thought content. It only gets worse when Doyoung, fully nude, climbs atop him. “What am I thinking about right now?”

An odd thought, one that almost derails all Doyoung’s wicked plans. Almost. He closes his eyes, settling in, only a little uncomfortable with Taeyong’s erection pressing into the curve of his ass. “You’re thinking about rolling me over and having your way with me, which is _not_ gonna happen. Not today, anyway,” he adds, trying to fight the almost distraught way in which Taeyong wriggles beneath him. “What else can I do for you? Because you must be stressed.” Without waiting for an answer, he leans over, kisses the line of Taeyong’s collarbones, marking his path with little bites that are probably going to get Taeyong in trouble tomorrow. Not that Doyoung cares enough to stop. 

He _does_ care, though. He does. 

He cares enough to worry over the oil burn still shining bright against Taeyong’s chest, and treats it with reverence, all closed-mouth kisses around the burn’s edges, disgustingly tender avoidance. “You should let me patch this up later,” he says quietly, eyes rolling to meet Taeyong’s, too aware that he’s being watched in his every gesture. “Tell me what you want, already.”

Taeyong’s hand comes up, tangles in the fine thread of Doyoung’s hair, holds him in place. He seems to struggle to formulate even a single thought, let alone a request that encompasses every desire he could possibly contain. “Ride me,” he whines, a high noise that bubbles up from him so viscerally that Doyoung can feel its movement, from diaphragm to mouth. That’s...strangely hot, like all those times he’d imagined someone (Taeyong, more often than not) stretching him out completely, the outline of them in his lower abdomen while they absolutely destroyed him. “Please, I haven’t fucked you in _forever_ , it’s like a _treat_ \--”

“Ugh, don’t be gross,” and here Doyoung spreads his hand over Taeyong’s face, pushes his head back. “Seriously.” But he kisses Taeyong anyhow, full on the mouth, and when he pulls back he admires how slick, how glossy, how _red_ Taeyong’s lips are. How pretty he looks when he wants something, when the desire is a fire that burns bright in his forever eyes. How hard he is when the head of his dick presses insistently into the place where Doyoung’s thigh meets his hip, how he leaks with the smallest bead of precum already.

It’s been awhile, after all. Doyoung’s not a romantic, but he sure does like taking his time admiring moments that definitely belong to him.

He doesn’t have to ask where the lube and condoms are kept. For a second he considers letting Taeyong inside him completely raw, but then, they’ve both been seeing other people since them. He doesn’t want to ruin the moment just for the opportunity to be a _complete_ whore. So he does the right thing, digs in the little cubby behind the bed, craning to reach into the appropriate space. At least Taeyong hasn’t changed things _too_ dramatically. 

“You took a shower before,” says Taeyong, as Doyoung unwraps the condom, carefully rolls it down his length. 

“I was _planning_ this, you mosquito,” he says with a careful swat to the line of Taeyong’s sternum, avoiding -- albeit narrowly -- the place where Taeyong surely still ached from his burn. Taeyong laughs weakly, fitting for the insult. “You think I don’t like helping take care of you or something?”

“You haven’t been, lately,” Taeyong says, impossibly soft, reaching into the space between them that he might drag a thumb over the apple of Doyoung’s cheek, draw him into a kiss that distinctly lacks in the heat all their others have had here tonight. “I dunno. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you came ready.”

“Which I wouldn’t have been able to do without reading your mind.” Doyoung arches an eyebrow, “If you’re mad about it, maybe take it out on me.”

“Trying to get your back blown out?” Doyoung’s gaze is elsewhere, trying with great concentration to line up just right, but he doesn’t miss the laughter in Taeyong’s voice. 

Doyoung sinks down with precision, gasping out an _always_ , professional when it comes to getting the last word if nothing else.

He bends at the waist and kisses Taeyong’s spit-shiny mouth, sucking on the tip of his tongue as he slowly settles himself on Taeyong’s cock. Their hands card into one another’s hair, grip tight as they start moving, first Doyoung, then Taeyong, two halves of a perpetual motion machine.

It feels good to finally be full again, to have someone buried so deep inside him that Doyoung swears he’d feel their cum in his small intestine if only they weren’t wearing a condom. That thought makes him moan in spite of himself. “Been thinking about you, too,” Doyoung confesses, between downward rolls of his hips, between the throbbing inside him that makes him feel whole in a way that nothing else manages to do. “Thinking about that time we fucked in the practise room bathroom, and-- ah, and you bit me all up, pressed me up against the wall, had you all over my back for ages and you--”

Taeyong smirks, a twitchy thing, his limbs tense with the effort of their fucking. “M-made you go back to work right away,” he almost laughs, voice caught in his chest. His hands wander lower, find the column of Doyoung’s spine, the small of his back, the meat of his ass. The latter he digs into, holding him open, making the slide that much easier when Doyoung starts to bounce in his lap. “You _looked_ fucked-out.”

And goodness, but does Doyoung find that attractive, the idea that someone else probably knew right away that he’d just gotten the orgasm of a lifetime, that he’d been forced to keep up appearances even when he wasn’t fooling anyone. It thrills him to the toes, adds to the puddle pooling in his lower abdomen -- the one he’d started by fingering himself open in a way-too-long shower not but maybe an hour before. “You like that, don’t you,” Doyoung grits out, quickening his pace, the muscles of his thighs crying out in protest and he pointedly ignoring the discomfort. “Like making me look messy for everyone else.”

“Just you,” Taeyong slurs, nails pressing crescents into Doyoung’s flesh, his own mouth starting to run off. “Only you, Doie, you know that, you’re the only slut I’d fuck like that, the only one I’d show off to everyone else--”

Doyoung’s defenses are down. He can’t ward off the images flooding his brain, the memories of all the times he and Taeyong had hooked up over the years, the public places they’d gotten around with fooling around in, the feeling of _satisfaction_ , of being _owned_ that Taeyong had always taken such care to leave him with. 

Between them, his own cock twitches, and he dribbles precum onto the plane of Taeyong’s belly. He tips his head back, and lets whatever will happen happen, all inkling of having control over this situation leaving him as Taeyong pounds into him again, again, _again_. Til he’s sure he doesn’t have thoughts left that aren’t the sweet, sickly stretch of having someone inside him.

Well, that, and Taeyong taking their sex as a chance to walk down memory lane, but that just sort of makes it hotter. Not that Doyoung would ever say as much.

Beneath him Taeyong shifts, and the head of his cock brushes, then hammers against Doyoung’s prostate, and really? It’s downhill from there. He ends up a slavering, babbling mess, asking and then pleading pathetically for more, letting himself let go further, until he decompensates entirely. Until he’s biting his lip and that’s the only thing that keeps him from letting out every curse word in the book and some new ones of his own invention because _fuck_ it’s been too long since they’ve been together. “Taeyong, _Taeyong_ ,” he says, the sound of it beyond his control, its construction not something he can fathom with his mouth _or_ his thoughts.

His thighs burn. He starts to slow. Curse his abominably low stamina.

In the end, Taeyong takes mercy on him, thrusts up into him and wraps those pretty fingers around the length of Doyoung’s cock and strokes him in slightly-off time to the rhythm the two of them are making with their hips. “Feels good?” he asks, barely words, more an approximation. Doyoung nods frantically, that same pool he’d been building all night -- no, all _day_ , because now’s the time to be honest with himself, admit that he’d been turned on ever since he realised what was running unbidden through Taeyong’s mind -- threatening to crash over him, submerge him entirely. Every inch of him prickles with anticipation. He knows the end is nigh.

“Gonna cum,” he manages, hips going both directions at once, he unable to decide which he’d like better: rutting into the careful touch of Taeyong’s hand, or grinding down further onto his dick.

He doesn’t have to decide, because Taeyong fucks him harder, his spare hand at Doyoung’s hip to keep him seated safely. Not that it’d be the first time Taeyong had fucked him right out of bed. When Doyoung cums it’s to a chorus of his own name, to the sweet, high sigh of breath that fills the room, the only sound either of them can safely make without attracting attention. Even as his release spills over Taeyong’s hand, over both their stomachs, Taeyong keeps going, taking advantage of Doyoung in his vulnerable state.

The best part about fucking around with your best friend is that he knows about your thing for being overstimulated, and is happy to oblige. 

It only takes maybe a minute more, Taeyong grunting and thrusting and filling Doyoung up entirely, his hips locking against Doyoung’s ass with each stroke. Dizzied with effort, with orgasm, Doyoung takes Taeyong’s fingers into his mouth, sucks his cum from them, and that’s enough to finish him off.

He can feel the warmth of the condom filling up inside him, and it’s almost enough that he might feel his dick twitching back to life. He almost regrets that he’s going to have to roll away, that they’re going to have to get rid of all that perfectly good mess. But then, Taeyong was probably right -- he’s a huge slut, especially when caught in the afterglow of the first orgasm he hasn’t given himself in quite some time.

Doyoung rolls away, arms fitted around Taeyong’s slim waist. They don’t disentangle, not yet, both of them being into staying locked in as long as they can. Taeyong’s eyes are closed, he looking _sleepy_ more than sated. “Don’t fall asleep in my bed,” he warns Doyoung. “Unless you really need to. I don’t care.”

“You’re so sweet right after you’ve had your dick ridden,” Doyoung chides, a bit sleepy himself. Eventually, though, he knows he’s going to have to move. “Did you really miss this? Us messing around?”

“I mean, yeah,” and here Taeyong forces the issue, pulls away that he might look Doyoung in the face. “We’re good together.”

And here, Doyoung doesn’t have a good defense against the rest of it, the parts Taeyong has inadvertently spared Doyoung from having to relive. The parts where they’d tried being boyfriends only to find out what a terrible fucking idea that is for the both of them. The parts where they’d tried to go back to normal after breaking up only for Taeyong to go soft on him.

Regretfully, Doyoung pulls away. That same emptiness that occupies him when he isn’t getting his brains fucked out takes him now, too. But he cares too much for his own good, so he sets to cleaning up, even though his back aches, his thighs don’t want him to walk, his knees wobble with every step. 

It’s a secret thing, sneaking out to the bathroom, returning with a damp rag. He’s almost relieved he hadn’t run into anyone. While he’d been gone Taeyong had disposed of the condom, drawn the blanket around his bare legs at the very least, careful of the mess drying in the fine hair of his lower abdomen. Doyoung carefully mops the forming crust from his skin, having done his own in the bathroom.

Because he cares, he pretends he can’t see everything Taeyong is thinking, that he doesn’t sometimes think about the same thing. “You’re going to sleep soon, right?” he asks Taeyong, all business. “I think you need a little rest.”

“Only if you’ll sleep with me,” whines Taeyong, making grabby hands when Doyoung draws away, tucking the washcloth he’d used to take care of Taeyong into the same place where the lube and condoms are hidden. “Please? I promise it won’t get weird.”

And Doyoung -- well, he knows better, knows that this is headed toward disaster. But he’d be lying if he wasn’t tired of going without for the greater good. He’s too selfish. He cares too much. So he crawls under the covers, wraps himself around Taeyong like an octopus, all his limbs around Taeyong’s frame.

“Stop thinking so much about it, nerd,” Doyoung says, closing his eyes as he buries his nose into Taeyong’s hair. “Go sleep. I’ll be right behind you.”

Though he knows this is the worst thing he can do, he means it. 

When Taeyong falls asleep first, he can see all those dreams, the sunshine ones where he and Doyoung are together, and happy, and not sneaking around for someone else’s benefit, the ones that don’t look at the pair of them together as they really are so much as some movie version of them where they’re the sort of people who fall in love and it doesn’t hurt everyone around them. 

Drowsy, he kisses the burn just over the beat of Taeyong’s heart, and goes to sleep himself. If he has those dreams all on his own, it’s no one’s fault but his own, for turning off the noise that keeps all those lofty ideas at bay.

///

The morning is an early one. Unforgiving. They have practise again, and Doyoung’s head is fuzzy with sleep. Taeyong is the one to wake him up, before anyone’s alarms have gone off. His bedhead is endearing, but the blatant worry in his eyes is not. 

“Last night,” he says in an almost stern voice. “You told me you could read my mind.”

Doyoung groggily drags the back of his hand across his bleary eyes. He makes a couple sounds that are meant to indicate that he is awake, even if he doesn’t answer right away. His vision swims, the afterimage of Taeyong’s face burned into his eyelids.

Finally, he replies, “I did tell you that, yeah.”

“Were you serious?” There’s a note of hysteria in Taeyong’s voice. “About the mind-reading. Because, you know, I’ve been thinking a lot of things--”

Doyoung’s thoughts, barely coherent and laced through with television static, fill with images he doesn’t ask for, and he wonders if maybe he’s missing too much sleep, if this is a permanent change of being. It takes a lot for him to chase away that fear, but he manages. “It was serious.”

“What am I thinking about right now?” The troubled way in which Taeyong clutches at Doyoung’s shoulders almost makes him want to oblige. But he’s tired, too tired.

He clears away the static anyhow. It’s what a best friend should do.

In Taeyong’s head are memories of the good times -- of the spots between their failed attempts at a relationship when they’d gotten along without pressure. Waking up late on mornings off wrapped up in one another, Taeyong’s face buried in the crook of Doyoung’s neck, his breath tickling Doyoung’s adams apple. Late nights spent in one another’s company, watching films while Taeyong worked on some art project or another, the scent of his markers filling the room. Drinking once in awhile -- not enough to warrant mention, but a memory that’s precious to Taeyong, at the very least, judging by the veritable hearts around Doyoung’s puffy, reddened face.

The good times. Doyoung says as much. “You think about it that much?” he asks, sitting up halfway and propping himself on an elbow.

Taeyong, almost frantic in his sincerity, puts his hands on Doyoung’s face, tucks strands of hair behind Doyoung’s ears, each side in turn. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, Doie, of course I do. I think about you all the time. I just...can’t believe you haven’t been listening.”

The benefit of their position is that when Doyoung leans forward to capture Taeyong’s mouth with his own, a careful slide of lips on lips, it’s almost expected. Or maybe that’s just Taeyong’s expectation seeping into Doyoung’s consciousness, pictures on pictures on pictures. A supercut of every reminder he’s been too tired to deal with.

Maybe they would be good.

“Can I get back to you?” Doyoung asks when they part, an early-morning string of spit still connecting their mouths.

Taeyong’s worry doesn’t abate. Doyoung can see the memories playing through his head still, hasn’t bothered to put up the screen he keeps between himself and everyone for his own sanity. He’s thinking of the arguments, of a Doyoung filled with doubts. “Yeah,” he lies, too aware that they both know it isn’t true. “Yeah, take all the time you need.”

Doyoung makes a sound that’s almost impatient. He rolls over Taeyong completely, stiffly asking him to ‘stay here’ and toddles, still naked and aching from the previous night’s activities, to the bathroom just next door. It’s a good thing no one else is awake, that alarms haven’t rung and Taeyong hasn’t done his due diligence as a leader to get everyone up in time to get ready to leave. He would hate to be caught like this, when he’s already vulnerable in a whole different regard.

When he returns to Taeyong’s bedroom, he’s got bandages and disinfectant and cotton balls. He sits at the edge of the bed. “Take off your shirt,” he says.

Taeyong looks as raw as he probably feels. “No,” he argues. “Why?”

“Because you _burned_ yourself last night, Taeyongie,” and Doyoung is so, _so_ tired of pretending he doesn’t care. If he’s honest with himself -- the one thing he’s truly skilled at -- he’s cared all the while.

Taeyong shrugs out of the threadbare t-shirt he’d probably put on sometime in the night, sets it gingerly on his pillow. He lets Doyoung disinfect the burn on his heart, and when he’s patched up, the bandage adhered to his skin, the hurt in his eyes that had showed Doyoung his sleep-worn reflection has softened into something else.

Wonderment. Doyoung knows Taeyong well enough, after all.

“Can we just. Can we lie here for a minute?” Doyoung asks, trying to calm the racing of his heart and failing. “Just a minute.” He deposits the trash from his too-late first aid on Taeyong’s desk and crawls into his bed without waiting on agreement. He stretches out his arms. “You’re going to have a bad day, if you don’t get a little more rest.”

And Taeyong, with his sparkling eyes and conflicting thoughts that Doyoung finally, _finally_ stops hating himself long enough to block out, does what Doyoung asks of him -- not because Doyoung’s the one asking, but because he _wants_ to. 

It’s a miracle.

Taeyong feels smaller than usual. He curls into a ball, spine pressed to Doyoung’s chest, a mirror of the night before. “I’ll take care of it,” he promises as sleep creeps into his voice again. “Just, five more minutes.”

The _with you_ is unspoken. Doyoung buries his nose in the nape of Taeyong’s neck and breathes in again.

He doesn’t have to read minds to know that there’s something _right_ about this. That’s the thought that rocks him to sleep.

If the kids wake them up later screaming about how they’re going to be late, it will have been worth it. But for now Doyoung abandons whatever notion of the future he has in favour of that five more minutes he’d been so sweetly asked for, fingers dragging comfort along the rungs of Taeyong’s ribcage. Whose comfort it is doesn’t matter. 

At long last, he can rest.

**Author's Note:**

> as always:  
> [twitter](http://twitter.com/appiarian)


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